


Sitting In A Tree

by EgregiousDerp



Category: Naruto
Genre: (So Late Blank Period I guess?), Dubiously Safe for Scarlet?, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Prompt Fill: “A Stolen Kiss”, Rock Lee is the Eyes Emoji But Respectful, Secret Relationship, post-war era but pre-Boruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25939240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgregiousDerp/pseuds/EgregiousDerp
Summary: “You uhm. You look well, Gaara-kun,” Lee prompts, hoping he doesn’t sound as moorless as he feels.Very well. Better than well, Lee notices. The hint of disheveling from travel and his little chakra stunt have left Gaara windswept and slightly flushed in a way that makes Lee need to fish his thoughts hastily away to thoughts of training and the close bond between Shinobi who’d battled together. Who had certain understandings. And trust. Who had-He forces his thoughts away from the grim downward curve of the Kazekage’s bloodless, chapped lips, and far away from the thought of thunder.The rain. Gaara smells like rain-wet earth Lee realizes abruptly.It’s the wrong realization.“Uhm! A-Are you...well?” Lee stammers.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94





	Sitting In A Tree

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a_gay_poster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/gifts).



> Prompt fill for Greyson from tumblr, which they’ve been asking me to put up so they can bookmark it for close to two months? (Longer?)
> 
> Previously posted in an earlier form on my tumblr, but the tagging for that has become such a pain for searches that I couldn’t even find my own post. :/

The smallness of the hand over his mouth is the only thing that keeps Lee from launching into an immediate and alarmed _Leaf Hurricane_.

He recognizes the hand’s softness next, still faster than his mind catches up with the coherent thought of who it belongs to, or how it familiarly smells like sandy soil, like the plain oil Gaara rubs into the creases of his palms and knuckles to keep his skin from cracking in the dryness of the desert.

Lee grips at that hand with the same bewildering instinct that tamps down immediately on not thinking of oil and Gaara in the same mental breath and that tells him not to throw himself into a flurry of distracting push-ups when he’s up the side of a tree and his absolutely abysmal chakra control is already badly bewildered by the sudden presence of a friend.

“ _Gaara-kun!_ ” Lee gasps.

Gaara’s hand lowers. The smile is faint. More in his eyes than his mouth.

“Lee.”

“But-“

Gaara just blinks very slowly as Lee jerks his head back and forth from the Hokage’s greeting entourage (which he _definitely_ wasn’t spying on!) and the other Shinobi beside him, small, unassuming, robes hanging down around his back and chin, rather ruining the effect of him effortlessly standing upside-down on the branch above Lee with perfect chakra control. His hair stands up like it did when they were children at this angle, and Lee’s chest gives a pang right in the region of his tight eighth gate.

He catches himself, shaking his head hard.

“Wh-?”

Lee gapes, pointing at the distant figures in white robes, then back at Gaara, making an incoherent noise of distress and confusion.

“ _Wh-_?”

“I made a sand clone,” Gaara said, mouth half-muffled by his downward-hanging robes. ( _It is not appropriate to think of the leader of a foreign land as cute!_ Lee furiously adds five hundred jump kicks with his new weights to his routine of mindful vigor!) “Naruto’s talking about his son again.”

Ah yes. Little Boruto. His first word. “Ramen.” Lee’s mind is still struggling to catch up.

Aah his _voice._ Poor Gaara-kun sounds as tired as ever. 

“ _But-_ “

“He won’t notice,” Gaara says more firmly. “He never does.” Lee opens his mouth. Closes it. _Wow_ he smells nice, it must be a Kage-level technique to look good even after a three day journey in the hot sun. Gaara-kun deserves to rest someplace safe, and cool, perhaps borrow Lee’s shower and a jumpsu-

_No!_ He has to be strong!

Lee shakes his head hard again to clear it of the image of Gaara in his jumpsuit.

“It cannot be safe for you to simply _leave_ -“

“You weren’t at the gate,” Gaara interrupts.

“ _What_?”

Gaara frowns. He doesn’t repeat himself.

Lee winces so hard he accidentally bites his tongue. The slight crease of a frown is starting to leave a little wrinkle between Gaara’s invisible brows that shows even through his armor now. It makes Lee want to smooth it with his fingertips or maybe his lips, to tell him not to work so very very hard. He is a _genius._ He shouldn’t even have to- No. That wouldn’t be right. Overstepping- 

Lee’s eyes skip around trying to find a place to look at on Gaara that doesn’t make him want to walk penalty laps around the whole village on his hands until his palms bruise and his head clears.

He smells _good._

Lee gulps. Looks away. Stares at the blur in orange flailing away animatedly.

“Oh. Well. I did not know if that would be-“

Welcome?

Appropriate?

Given that-

Lee’s face heats.

“So you’re alright.” Gaara’s sigh is a bit reproachful.

“I am- I am alright, yes,” Lee stammers as his friend releases his chakra control and drops down, right-side up onto the branch beside him. “What about you? Are you well, Gaara-kun?”

He cannot say he looks _good_ . What sort of friend could he call himself if-? If he were to be _misconstrued_ as-?

Gaara’s hair’s starting to grow out, Lee notices, unable to stop himself from brushing it off his friend’s forehead, smoothing the shapeless white robes. It’s coarse to the touch, and slow-growing, but such a beautiful color, Gaara-kun’s hair...

Aah! He’s getting distracted again!

Gaara lets him touch him, lets him set him back into array, utterly unconcerned by his closeness.

_Their_ closeness. He doesn’t seem to have heard Lee at all and Lee can’t remember what he was saying, fixed in that unblinking stare.

“You uhm. You _look_ well, Gaara-kun,” Lee prompts, hoping he doesn’t sound as moorless as he feels.

Very well. _Better_ than well, Lee notices. The hint of disheveling from travel and his little chakra stunt have left Gaara windswept and slightly flushed in a way that makes Lee need to fish his thoughts hastily away to thoughts of training and the close bond between Shinobi who’d battled together. Who had certain _understandings_. And _trust_. Who had-

He forces his thoughts away from the grim downward curve of the Kazekage’s bloodless, chapped lips, and far away from the thought of thunder.

The rain. Gaara smells like rain-wet earth Lee realizes abruptly.

It’s the wrong realization.

“Uhm! _A-Are_ you...well?” Lee stammers.

Gaara abruptly leans into his touch like a cat with a hum, bruise-colored eyelids lowering. The rumble of the noise sends a shiver right through the base of Lee’s spine where his seventh gate rests.

Ah, _youth_...

Gai-Sensei had said these things were but a natural expression of youth.

“I could sense your chakra,” Gaara murmurs.

“I just did not know if-“ Lee falters again, realizing they’ve spoken at the same time. “Sorry.”

Gaara just frowns slightly.

Lee considers his friend’s closed-off face, his minute expressions. A stray lock of hair fallen over his forehead, the scar there. Lee brushes it back, licking a thumb and trying to press it back into place out of Gaara’s eyes, which still haven’t left him, or blinked.

The skin around them is purple-black, horribly bagged, permanently stained with exhaustion and lack of sleep, the blood vessels ruptured. Lee can see little bloodshot veins in the sclera that never heal. But Gaara’s eyes are still a beautiful color. An arresting color. Simultaneously alive and not quite right.

His pupils still gleam in the dark and catch the light like an animal’s. Lee knows this. Lee knows on some other level that should frighten him. That the placidity of the sand mask and the expressiveness of the eyes beneath should give him warning.

But Gaara’s eyes are still _beautiful_.

...He shouldn’t stare too long.

(He can’t help it.)

“I see,” Gaara sighs after a too-long beat of silence.

Even Lee can’t come up something to stammer or babble, staring fixedly at Gaara’s feet.

He pulls his hand away quickly:

Gaara’s quiet for a moment. They both study the sand clone. (Is the sand clone with Naruto or with him? Does that matter? _Should_ that matter?) Even from here, Lee can hear the bright exclamations Naruto’s making, can see the sweeps of his arms in his peripheral vision.

A little flicker of fondness swells behind Lee’s eighth gate. Clone or no, at least Gaara-kun will carry memories of both him and Naruto-kun, effectively doubling his time in their village. It’s very clever. Gaara-kun is clever. Lee isn’t often given to envy, but being able to copy himself, being able to train with himself, being able to be with many of his friends would be...so useful.

He stares at his distant friends a little wistfully.

Gaara exhales through his nose. He seems abruptly irritated.

“Well. If you don’t want me here-“

“What? No! I most certainly _do_ want you here!” Lee stammers, flustering further when Gaara’s eyes slide back open to look at him. He lowers his voice hastily as the frown returns. (Aaah Gaara-kun hasn’t stayed hydrated or properly rested _again_!) Lee rubs at his hands with his thumbs without thinking and feels those little hands relax, then clasp at his.

“It is only I am not sure if it is _right_ for you to put yourself in such danger to talk to me like this.”

“I’m not in danger,” Gaara dismisses with a lazy closing of his eyes.

Lee backpedals, feeling his ears burn as Gaara’s little hands find his waist, rub at his back, his hipbones through the suit in a way that makes him want to run right now and do a brisk full speed sprint around the entire perimeter of the village and up the side of the tallest mountain in Konoha. Like he has wind jutsu in his feet, or like he just dropped his weights.

Is he being held? Embraced? Categorized?

“Well it would certainly be- embarrassing?” Lee stammers.

_Aaah_! What is he even saying?!

Gaara’s eyes fix hard on him, then drag down his scarf, his bare arms.

“Embarrassing.”

Heat rises up Lee’s neck into his ears at how _considering_ Gaara can look. 

“That is- I do not think-“

“Did you _want_ to do something embarrassing?”

Lee’s heart jumps into his throat even as exasperation bursts like a bubble over his excitement. Now _definitely_ isn’t the time to think of the smell of plain oil, and sand-smoothed skin under his fingertips. Gaara’s clever little fingers and quick learning. The gleam of his eyes in the near dark. How the genius of the sand can bring a person to their knees. That wasn’t a thing that was _supposed_ to have happened! Let alone a thing meant to _keep_ happening more than once! Twice. Definitely not more than _four_ times!

“That-! That is not-!”

(But Gaara _wanted_ it to keep happening, apparently. Something small and triumphant crows deep inside Lee. He doesn’t _act_ like it was a mistake-)

Gaara’s thumbs press hard against his hips.

He might bruise him.

Lee might _like_ it.

Too much, possibly. Enough for it to be an embarrassment in the face of their great and profound friendship. The trust between Shinobi, and the shame of a misunderstanding between their nations if it were to be known that the Kazekage had- _had-_

Lee shakes his head hard, a blaze of embarrassment burning the back of his throat, just above his third gate.

He can’t let that happen.

As a trusted representative of Konoha and as Gaara’s _friend,_ he can’t let that happen.

“I would like for you to _rest_ after your journey! You are tired.”

“I’m always tired.”

“ _Gaara.”_

It slips out without the honorific. Cut off. Lee fumbles, falters, reddens. “-kun!” Stammering. “G-Gaara-kun!”

Gaara smiles.

It was easy to miss his smiles, rare as they were, and more in the eyes than in his mouth. This one was easier still to miss because Gaara was leaning closer on his toes so his eyes were most of what Lee could see. The clear color of them, like glass, the glint of an animal’s eyes in the dark. A milky marble. A hazy photo of the moon. Yellow-green in the depths of his pupils at odd angles.

He leaves a feather-light brush of his lips against Lee’s before pulling back, sinking down off his tiptoes, before Lee can do more than take a shaky breath in, leaving bunched wrinkles in the shoulders of the white Kage robe from the too-tight grip of his fingers.

The _Kazekage’s_ robe, Lee reminds himself a little miserably, forcing himself to relax and not stare at the sand-fine skin of Gaara-kun’s cheek, the little peels of skin on his lips. Surely a sand clone wouldn’t be so detailed-

Lee inhales through his nose.

What an unexpectedly hot day it is!

“Leave the window open,” Gaara says. “I’ll let myself in.”

Lee can’t speak, suddenly off-balance. Blood rushing into his ears. He nods quickly, furiously instead, tightness all in the region around his fifth and sixth gates. Gaara’s fingers are still pressing, kneading against his hips through his suit like it’s nothing. An unexpectedly carnal gesture. Like this is all nothing. 

“Y-You will?”

  
Gaara stares at him, frowns slightly.

Lee’s face feels hot just thinking about Gaara’s hands. The pale, delicate way his skin looks as his armor slides off of it. Unfeeling layers from layers- The smallness of his unprotected back in the strobe of lightning through the window, and spatters of water chasing him in-

_No!_ Now is not the time to be distracted by his friend! Gaara-kun is not here for that! He has duties! He has-

“A-Alright.”

The word slips from Lee’s mouth and he bites his tongue too late.

_Perhaps it is because he is tired, because he has duties that he wishes to escape, so he-_

A flicker of sorrow tightens Lee’s eighth gate.

_Oh._

In that case it would be the duty of a friend to-

Lee swallows the lump in his throat.

_We cannot keep doing this, Gaara-kun._

It’s only when Gaara squeezes that Lee realizes they’re still holding hands, their fingers laced like tangled legs, Gaara’s palm over the back of his like a layer of armor. A pressure against his chest Lee takes a moment to really register, then grasps for blindly with the other hand. 

Gaara’s pressing his Kage hat into his chest, Lee realizes, distracted because Gaara’s leaned up on his tiptoes again and his eyes are bright, thoughtful, and Lee for all his speed wouldn’t avoid this even if he tried.

He doesn’t, eyes slipping shut.

Gaara still kisses clumsily. Like nobody’s told him another person’s mouth isn’t a piece of fruit to gnaw at. 

Lee’s not about to be the first to tell him so any more than he could tell him it’s a bad idea for them to get entangled like this at all, a bad idea to let Lee mold his body with his hands as easily as any other Shinobi could shape chakra, or to warn Gaara he thinks too highly of his own ability to protect himself, and Lee’s never been good at love any more than he’s good at Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, so he’s trying as hard as he can to keep love far from this.

If he hurt a precious friend because of his own _weakness-_

He can’t say those things pressed up against Gaara, who’s quiet, but somehow very _insistent_ , any more than he can say he has the vague, uneasy gut sense this could turn into something horribly complicated and Gaara could be hurt. _Badly_ hurt. And it would all be his fault. And Gaara’s back is so unexpectedly small without his armor, his skin so soft-

(But how? How can he be so worried? It’s just _Gaara-kun._ His friend. Gaara-kun. Who’s resilient, and strong, and beautiful, and somehow seeks him out now every time they’re in Konoha together, and now is stealing time away even from his official duties to speak to him, to steal _kisses_ from him and Lee’s falling. Falling-)

Oh, he really is falling.

That’s his feet slipping off tree bark, he realizes, Gaara’s fingers hard against the back of his neck, Lee’s fingers instinctively pulling him closer too as Gaara crowds into him and falls with him.

There’s nothingness in the space between Gaara’s lips, and then nothing at all, his body light and strong as it always is at first, then lighter suddenly as it melts away into a billowing cushion of sand that knocks most of the impact out as Lee hits the ground.

The impact is more shocking than actually painful. Startling the breath out of Lee.

For a moment, there’s just the sand, soft, and body-warm beneath him-

(Another thing Lee can’t think about-)

-it’s supple where once it was frightening. Soft as the skin it polishes. Warm as the body it pretended to be. Then the sand too begins to wisp and spiral away, dragging like fingers through his hair, reluctant to drop its cradle of his head.

All at once it’s gone, leaving Lee holding the hat that will be Gaara’s excuse to visit later. To catch up. To maybe even rest.

More than anything else, Lee just hopes he _rests._

...He probably won’t.

Lee’s seventh and eighth gate both tighten.

_We cannot keep doing this, Gaara-kun._

_If something were to happen, I-_

Lee squeezes his eyes shut and covers his face with the Kazekage’s hat.

It smells like his friend’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Sup, I’m Skuun. I’m EgregiousDerp on tumblr, and I’m working through editing and putting up a year and a half backlog of fic.


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